


It Was Only a Kiss (it was only a kiss)

by zigostia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: John is a Saint, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-17 23:31:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15472530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zigostia/pseuds/zigostia
Summary: Was it an accident? An experiment? A test?Did you mean it?





	It Was Only a Kiss (it was only a kiss)

“Oohhh,” Sherlock said, hands braced against the back of his head. “That’s _it.”_

“What’s _it,”_ John said, even though he knew it was quite useless.

Sherlock whirled around, pointing a finger at him. His eyes were wide, glittering, bright with triumph.

“That’s it!” he crowed. “It wasn’t—oh, that’s fantastic—where’s Lestrade, he—this is big, we’ll need Mycroft as well—tell him to stop eating cake and get over here, this is—John!”

“Hm?” John said, shaking himself. “Sorry, yeah, Lestrade and Mycroft. I’ll text them.” He reached for his phone.

Sherlock’s hands shot out and grabbed his, halting their path. Long, pale fingers twined with calloused and tanned.

“No, no, not that.” Sherlock’s voice quivered with pent-up emotion. “It’s _you.”_

John stared at Sherlock’s face, then trailed his gaze downwards—hands and fingers laced together. “Me,” he said blankly.

“Yes, you,” Sherlock said, brimming with enthusiasm. “You are brilliant, you are the most conductive person, thing, material—you’re silver, you’re copper, you’re gold, you’re—” He seemed so incredibly _happy,_ one deduction away from tapping his feet and doing a little jig.

“You’re welcome?” John said, dubiously. Sherlock’s excitement was catching on; he found himself smiling despite himself, a buzz beginning in the base of his spine.

“Yes!” Sherlock said. “Yes, yes, yes.” He leaned in and gave John a long, hard kiss on the lips.

He pulled back with a slight smacking noise and beamed. “We need to go back to the crime scene immediately. Text Lestrade and Mycroft on the way.”

He turned and strode away with a skip in his step.

John, for his part, stayed wholly, utterly, and thoroughly still.

Sherlock’s steps slowed, then stopped. He turned, an impatient look on his face.

“Come _on,_ John,” he said.

John said, “Sherlock, did you kiss me?”

Sherlock blinked. Something passed over his face, a shadow, a flicker of withheld emotion.

Then, it was quickly swept away, replaced with a look of urgency.

His feet moved, nearing John. He took him by the shoulders and leaned in, eyes filled with intent. He opened his mouth.

“It’s the sister’s boss,” he said. “And he’s going to escape in less than an hour. Plane ticket, remember?”

Pause.

“Jesus Christ,” John breathed. Double-fucking-whammy. He felt his head begin to spin.

Sherlock’s mouth thinned with determination. “We have to go,” he said. “And _quick.”_ He turned around again, this time steering John by the shoulders. “The cabs are too busy at this hour, we’ll have to run; ten minutes, let’s _go.”_

“OK,” John said, his mind a whirl, struggling to make head and end of everything that was happening all at once. His soldier’s instinct took over, balancing priorities against one another.

The murderer.

(Yes.)

(OK.)

And off they went, running across the cityscape of London in pursuit of an international homicide suspect. The usual.

Of course, excluding one minutiae.

-+-+-+-

John prodded at a soon-to-be bruise on his hip and winced. “All in a day’s work.”

Sherlock hummed. He was in a good mood, as he usually was after criminal chases went successfully.

John sighed. Add that to the list of things he never thought he’d say. (Don’t put the dung beetles next to the donuts! Fingers are for the freezer, not the fridge! Stop flushing snake skins down the toilet!)

“Dinner?” Sherlock said.

“Starving,” John replied.

They argued over Chinese and Angelo’s; Sherlock won and they wound up at their window table, candle casting a cheery glow over the cream-coloured tablecloth—which John gave his usual look, but sighed and decided it wasn’t worth the effort anymore.

Especially since—

“Now that that’s over,” John said.

Sherlock’s fingers tapped on the tablecloth; ta, ti-ka ti. His eyes darted around the restaurant.

John licked his lips and coughed. He laced his fingers together on top of the table.

“About the—”

“Ah,” Sherlock said, “our food’s here.”

John blinked. He looked over to see Angelo nearing, a plate of gnocchi in his hands.

“You mean _my_ food,” he said. (Well, what should be his food, anyway. Sherlock enjoyed taking John’s things so much—laptop, jumpers, tea—it naturally extended to food.)

Sherlock picked up his fork the instant the dish was on the table. John sighed, pushing the plate into the middle before taking his own fork as well.

A few bites and a sip of water later, John wiped his mouth with a napkin.

“Right,” he said, “then. As I was saying—”

Eyes fixed on him with a look of intense focus, Sherlock nodded, swallowed, and immediately began to cough.

John frowned. “Sherlock? You alright?”

Pressing a hand to his chest, Sherlock grabbed the water cup.

He gulped it down, then placed it back onto the table, letting out a few stray coughs.

“Yes,” he said, voice slightly hoarse. He took a slow, steady breath. “Fine.” He reached over to the plate, stabbed a cherry tomato, and popped it into his mouth.

“Alright,” John said, watching him carefully. “Anyways.”

He took another sip of water, and then a deep breath, and then met Sherlock’s eyes.

“The kiss,” he said.

Sherlock opened his mouth, no sound coming out.

“I’m going to approach this with an open mind,” John continued.

Sherlock raised a finger, pointed it at John, and then back to himself.

“Feel free to—” John looked at Sherlock with a bit more attentiveness. “What?”

Eyes going wide with faint alarm, face colouring a pale red, Sherlock let out a miniscule wheezing noise.

“Oh my god,” John said, “are you choking?”

Sherlock gave John a disparaging look. _No, I’m pretending to._

“Oh, for…” John stood up from his chair and reached Sherlock in a few brisk steps. Wrapping his arms around an (achingly) thin torso, he tightened his hands into fists, one covering the other, and sharply punched up.

A small, red object shot out of Sherlock’s mouth and hit the table with a dull thud. It bounced once, then rolled onto the floor. Sherlock let out a flurry of coughs, chest heaving.

John rubbed at the small of Sherlock’s back. “Do you not know how to eat properly?” Dampening the prickle of concern that had sparked up, he handed him his now-half-empty glass of water. “Jesus.”

“Thanks,” Sherlock murmured, accepting the drink.

John grunted in acknowledgement, heading back to his seat, casting a nod to the slight melange of attention that this commotion had drawn. _It’s all good, mate, all in a day’s work._ Just par for the course. When Sherlock Holmes was a constant in your life, you tended to take everything in stride.

He poked around at the remnants of their (what’s that? It’s the sound of his subconsciousness giving up) gnocchi, and searched fruitlessly for the shreds of courage he had previously summoned to bring up the topic of conversation before it had been interrupted—twice.

_You kissed me._

Did he?

Was it an accident? An experiment? A test?

_Did you mean it?_

The quiet, ambient chatter of the restaurant was unbearably silent.

“That case,” John said. “Tell me more.”

Sherlock’s shoulders loosened. He exhaled through his nose. “Of course.”

-+-+-+-

The next morning, John found the fortitude he had lost in two cups of tea, one black and one milky, the latter handed to Sherlock as he bent over the makeshift lab table, fully clad in a clash of dressing gown and goggles, dripping something into a Erlenmeyer flask.

“Last night,” John said.

Sherlock watched a drop of fluid fizzle in the flask, accepted and took a sip of his tea without taking his eyes off the table, and didn’t respond.

“You kissed me,” John said.

Sherlock’s fingers tightened on the pipette, sending a flurry of drops sputtering down. The flask sizzled, spit, and suddenly grew in volume, rising precariously until it shot up in a geyser of grey foam.

“Whoopsie,” Sherlock said, standing up. “Get out, the fumes are corrosive.”

As if on cue, the newly-installed (the many, many previous ones having either been broken by Sherlock, John, or the sheer volume of poisonous fumes), something-or-the-other, stupidly-mandatory-or-Mrs-Hudson-will-kick-us-out-of-the-flat detectors realized the situation at hand and reacted accordingly.

“Are you serious?” John said, his voice barely discernible over the shrieking above their heads.

Sherlock pulled out a packet of some kind of powder from a drawer. “When am I not? Leave, quickly.”

“Wh—” John sputtered. “No! We have to talk about this!”

Sherlock gave John a look. “You’ll feel the burning just about now. The stinging and tears will come in ten seconds. Two minutes, temporarily blindness. Four, permanent.”

Traitorously, John’s eyes began to burn.

Pointedly, slowly, then with an increasing urgency that was parallel to the pain in his eyes, he backed away towards the exit.

“Fuck you, Sherlock Holmes,” he yelled over the blaring alarm.

“Love you too,” Sherlock drawled, dumping the powder all over the table. Smoke billowed up, dark and thick. A high-pitched beeping noise joined the previous detector in their gleeful death chorus.

(Quickly, urgently, oh-god-get-me-the-fuck-out-of-here-ly) shutting the door behind him, John pressed a hand to his chest and hacked out the remnants of the contaminated air, fighting the urge to rub his eyes.

“Boys!” came a familiar cry. The door of the entrance to their flat pounded. John grimaced.

“Sorry, Mrs. Hudson,” he called back. “Something—happened.”

“You’re paying for the repairs,” Mrs. Hudson said with a sigh in her voice. Exasperation-laced. (The usual.) No anger, no surprise. She was Sherlock Holmes’ landlady; occupational hazard, really. Bless her soul.

“Got it,” John said, rubbing at his forehead with two fingers.

A loud bang emitted from the closed door to the lab, followed by a shout, followed by the alarms dropping off one by one, followed by an unnaturally-long period of silence.

“I require your assistance,” Sherlock said.

“Goddamnit, Sherlock,” John muttered.

-+-+-+-

“You’re a bloody idiot, you know that?”

Sherlock tightened his lips as John dabbed Polysporin over the back of his hand.

“And, you know,” John continued, “there is an off button on the detectors.”

Raising his eyes to meet John’s, Sherlock smirked. “Where’s the fun in that?”

John ducked his head and picked up the gauze to conceal a smile. Holding Sherlock’s hand in his right, he wrapped the fabric around once, twice, making sure it wasn’t too tight. He felt Sherlock watching him, two sunspots of warmth on the top of his head.

“And, you know,” John said softly, “I’m not stupid.”

“What makes you think that?” Sherlock murmured.

John ran the top of his thumb over the back of Sherlock’s hand, and then let it drop. “You’re shit at changing the topic, yeah?”

Sherlock averted his eyes. “What makes you think that?” he said again.

John sighed. “You can’t avoid something forever.”

Sherlock stayed silent.

John continued, feeling like a primary school teacher— _use your words! “I” statements!_

“You kissed me,” he said, noting the way Sherlock stiffened at the word. “That’s not something we can just brush off. In fact, it’s not something we—you—should’ve even avoid talking about. We were friends, Sherlock—best friends. If you kissed me with that thought in mind, it changes everything.” He took a deep breath. “If that were the situation, you avoiding the topic is, well. A bit not good.”

He paused, gathering his thoughts.

“I don’t know what you meant by it,” he approached. “I need you to talk to me.”

Sherlock’s head remained low, his eyes fixed on a point on the table. When he spoke, his voice was soft, hesitant, painfully light.

“I am highly inexperienced in this area,” he said. “That I will admit.”

John nodded, careful as to not rattle the wires, shake the precarious ledge this conversation was balanced on, this fragile tightrope topic.

“The kiss,” Sherlock said. “The kiss was… surprising. Even to me. My actions are normally well-regulated, but this one was spontaneous, sudden, and highly unexpected.” He paused, taking in a breath. “As was, might I add, my feelings towards you.”

John’s breaths came shallow. The room swayed. His pulse thrummed in his ears.

“I don’t understand what has happened to me,” Sherlock said. “I cannot make head nor tail of this thing that has consumed me, every moment I—whenever you’re with me, whenever you’re in my thoughts. Which has been… exceedingly frequent. Alarmingly frequent. I hadn’t realized the severity of my situation until recently.” He smiled at John; wryly, dryly; sardonically-tinged. “Sentiment. Not my strong suit.”

John was quiet.

Then, suddenly, he surprised himself with a chuckle. “Yeah, I’ll say.”

Sherlock frowned a little, smiled a little, then slipped a cool mask of indifference onto his face.

“I,” he said, then stopped. Swallowed. Eyes turned back away. “I don’t suppose you feel comfortable in my presence any longer. I apologize.” He began to stand up.

John placed a hand on his arm. “No, wait.”

He applied light pressure, gently coaxing, until Sherlock sat back down; quicksilver eyes curious and piercingly sharp.

“Like I said,” John said. “If I thought of you as a best friend, your confession—along with your kiss—would be—well. A bit not good, I suppose.”

Frustration surfaced in the tightness of the corners of Sherlock’s mouth. “Yes, you said that already.”

“Well then,” John continued, “it’s good that I don’t.”

Sherlock stilled.

“Because I—I don’t. Think of you that way. And by that I mean—oh, damn it. If you did it, I get to, too.”

John placed down the roll of gauze and stood up. Sherlock stood with him, confusion etched on his features.

John stepped closer. He gently cupped the back of Sherlock’s neck in one hand, the other lightly touching his cheek.

“Tell me if I’m fucking everything up,” he whispered, and leaned in.

Sherlock drew in a sharp inhale when their lips met. John allowed himself one second, one kiss—softly, softly—a question—and then pulled away, their shared breaths mingling in the air between them.

A suspended second.

Then, Sherlock’s arms came up; one hand sliding through John’s hair, the other a warm palm on his cheek. He tilted his head and closed the gap.

Oh, John thought, and then, _Of course._

Softly, slowly, sweetly. They took in the other’s presence. Their lips, their hands, skin against skin.

This was what they were missing, John thought. All this time.

When they parted, Sherlock’s eyes were dark, pupils blown wide. His mouth was slightly open, and John yearned to kiss him again.

John smiled; a small smile, and then growing. Absolutely genuine, shining through the stretch of his cheeks.

Sherlock blinked, swallowed, licked his lips. His voice was a rough murmur. “That was—”

“Mm?” John said.

Sherlock paused. “Mhm,” he responded.

The smile turned into a grin. John reached towards Sherlock and tucked back a curl of his hair. Sherlock’s face was tinted a pale rosy pink, and if anyone had ever told John that he could make Sherlock Holmes blush, he would’ve chortled. If anyone had ever told John that he would be kissing Sherlock Holmes, he would’ve told them to get their head out of their arse and ease up on whatever drugs they were using.

But here they were.

John was suddenly seeing Sherlock in a completely different light. Fresh eyes scanned over familiar features—dark, tumbling curls framing sharp, high cheekbones; swooping lashes lining bright and sparkling eyes, a little bit blue and a little bit green and a little bit grey; the tip of a tongue brushing over delicate bow lips.

And it was wonderful, it was freeing, this feeling of affection, of sentiment, washing over him in warm waves, finally being embraced after being held back for so long. Now that this line had been tread and trodden over, he was free to admit it, to others as well as himself. Sherlock Holmes was gorgeous, brilliant, beautiful—and John knew it.

Sherlock looked at John, his gaze sharpening.

“You feel the same,” he said, as if he could read his thoughts. There was something that almost sounded like awe in his voice.

“Mm. Yeah,” John said.

The amazement turned to accusation. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

John gave him an _Are you serious_ look. “Why didn’t _you?”_

Sherlock furrowed his eyebrows. “Hmm.”

“Yeah,” John murmured. “We’re both idiots.”

“That’s half true,” Sherlock said.

John grinned. “I’ll agree to that.”

A break in conversation, but not heavy nor awkward; the air between them glimmered and hummed. A comfortable, easy silence. Pleasantly hazy.

“Kiss me again,” Sherlock suddenly declared.

John blinked. “What, now?”

“Yes, now.”

John raised an eyebrow. “I just kissed you a minute ago.”

“Yes, well. It’s new information, I need to file it down in my mind palace.”

“Like I said,” John said, “you’re shit at excuses.”

He laughed at Sherlock’s expression. “Come here, idiot,” he said fondly.

All in a day’s work.

**Author's Note:**

> Here, have some self-indulgent fluff with a sprinkling of crack.  
> (i.e. Hope you enjoyed!)
> 
> Title taken from the lyrics of "Mr BrightSide" by The Killers.


End file.
